City's
vacant building registry takes a hit - (www.chicagotribune.com) Vacant
buildings in foreclosure with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do
not have to follow Chicago’s vacant building ordinance, a federal judge has
ruled. The decision, filed Friday in Chicago by U.S. District Court Judge
Thomas Durkin, deals a blow to the city, which is trying to grapple with
thousands of empty buildings caught up in a lengthy foreclosure process and
dragging down neighborhoods. It also has national implications. More than 1,000
municipalities around the country, by one count, have laws that require the
registration and maintenance of vacant properties. The court’s decision
could prompt the FHFA to file suit against other cities’ local laws, or
municipalities themselves may have to retool their own ordinances if they
decide they are no more enforceable than Chicago’s. The local law, which took
effect in November 2011, requires not just owners of vacant buildings but also
mortgagees -- the holder of the mortgage but not necessarily the owner of the
mortgage -- to promptly register a building after it becomes vacant, pay a $500
registration fee and maintain certain property standards. Violators of the
ordinance incur fees of $500 to $1,000 for each infraction.
Brazil
Real Weakens Amid Concern Intervention Won’t Stem Decline - (www.bloomberg.com) Brazil’s real extended the biggest three-month drop
among major currencies on speculation a $60 billion intervention program isn’t
enough to stem the slide. The real fell 1.5 percent to 2.3843 per dollar at
3:21 p.m. in Sao Paulo. It jumped the most in almost two years Aug. 23, the day
after the central bank said it will auction $1 billion of loans every Friday
and offer $500 million worth of foreign-exchange swaps four times a week for
the rest of 2013. Policy makers are stepping up efforts to support the real
after it declined 14 percent over the past three months, raising concern that
its tumble will fuel inflation already running near the top end of the
government’s target. As part of the intervention program, the central bank sold
all 10,000 currency swaps offered in an auction today. “We still need time to
see if these measures will really produce an effect,” Francisco
Carvalho,
the currency director at Liquidez Dtvm, said in a phone interview from Sao
Paulo. Brazil’s real dropped the most among 24 emerging market currencies after
the Mexican peso today as investors weighed whether the U.S. Federal Reserve
next month will reduce stimulus that’s boosted demand for the Latin American
country’s securities, Carvalho said.
Japan
may dip into budget reserves to fight Fukushima toxic water - (www.reuters.com) Tokyo
Electric Power Co, the operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, said
it would invite foreign decommissioning experts to advise it on how to deal
with highly radioactive water leaking from the site, and Japan signaled it may
dip into a $3.6 billion emergency reserve fund to help pay for the clean-up. Visiting
the plant crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, Toshimitsu
Motegi, the trade and industry minister, said on Monday he would set up a
taskforce to take charge of the clean-up, and send officials to Fukushima to
oversee operations. "I strongly feel that the government should get fully
involved," he told reporters after touring the Fukushima Daiichi facility,
which is 220 km (137 miles) north of Tokyo.
U.S. durable goods post largest drop in nearly
a year - (www.reuters.com) Orders
for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods recorded their biggest drop in nearly
a year in July and a gauge of planned business spending on capital goods also
tumbled, casting a shadow over the economy early in the third quarter. The
report on Monday added to other data for July on industrial production, housing
starts and new home sales that have suggested economic growth this quarter will
probably not accelerate as much as economists had hoped. "So far, things
aren't looking that great," said Millan Mulraine, senior macro strategist
at TD Securities in New York. "We are expecting a bounce in growth, it can
still come, but it may not necessarily be in the first month of the
quarter."
Russia
slashes economic growth forecasts, second time this year - (www.reuters.com) Russia cut
its economic forecasts for the second time this year, increasing pressure on
Vladimir Putin to revive growth that has faded since a state spending splurge
helped secure his election to a third Kremlin term. The Economy Ministry
slashed its forecasts for 2013 and 2014 after growth in the second quarter of
this year was the slowest since the slump of 2009, documents obtained by
Reuters on Monday showed. The news broke as the president made one of his many
tours to key industrial regions - this time to Kemorovo in the Kuzbass
coalfields - to demand greater urgency in developing Russia's vast resource
base.
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